“I lied to him every day of his life,” Jamie whispered. “I let him think he was an orphan. I let him grow up in a house where his own father—the man who raised him—was a lie. And now he has seen my face on a battlefield. He will think I am a ghost. Or a demon. Or worse… a disappointment.”
William.
I traced the ink lines on the parchment—Jamie’s hand, steady despite the tremor of our century—and saw not the troop movements of the Continental Army, but the fault lines in our own souls. We had won a battle. We had lost a son. Not to death, but to a more cruel mistress: history.
Jamie’s hand stopped. The silence between us was a living thing, a third presence in the room.
And then I saw him.
And William went. Because he was a soldier. Because he was afraid. Because sometimes, the truth is a heavier weapon than a musket.
Instead, he shoved William toward his own lines and roared, “Go! Now! Before I let them take ye!”